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Last week a group of young farmers headed back to the freezing cold weather to Moline, Illinois to enjoy some good old John Deere hospitality and see where all these green machines that we tend to favor (on our farm at least) get their start.

We were able to tour the Harvester Works Factory, Tractor Works, and Engine Works while on our three day adventure. While I was there I realized that John Deere isn’t too different from our own farm back here in Oregon, for instance we both are the World Headquarters…

Photo outside what they call the “Rusty Palace”Photo of the front of our farm office….the door also reads…

Also another thing we have in common, they employee over 67,000 employees all over the world. We employee 4 employees, who all love to travel all over the world! Wow what similarities! But in all seriousness I do have to say that John Deere started out in 1837 as just that, a family company. And in many ways they are still holding true to core family values, even as such a large company that builds equipment for so many industries.

I was impressed by the thought to the future of prodcution. It was something that was mentioned everywhere we went. How do we feed the world in the safest and most prodcutive way possible? They had displays with research showing what they were tracking and what they cared about. A lot of is as you can see in the pictures below go over how to reduce our use of natural resources, and how do we continue to use technology to our hungry populations advantage.

Another subject that was continuously seen was John Deere’s commitment to be always be linked to the land. Linked to those farmers who are using their products, relying on their products, and then going out and feeding the world. Throughout their headquarters even they had artwork that displayed just that message, like the mural below depicts. It all started with some dirt, a plow sheer, and an idea of how something could be done just a little bit better.

I don’t have any photos of the actual manufacturing being done, they didn’t allow for photos to be taken while in the factories. I will say though that the level of efficiency and production was truly incredible. And if you ever find yourself back in Iowa or Illinois I would take the time to check out what is happening in those small little towns with such large factories.

Also I wanted to extend a big thank you to Pape Machinery & John Deere for hosting such a great event.